Solidarity with Gaza, Solidarity with Palestinian Queers

My speech at the Gay Marriage Rights rally, Sydney 25 November 2012

It is great to see so many people here standing up for our rights. At the same time we should also think about the rights of others, elsewhere. One of the great traditions of our movement is international solidarity. What I wish to ask all of you is to also think of the rights of our gay, lesbian, transexual and queer brothers and sisters in the besieged Gaza Strip in Palestine.

The besieged people of Gaza have just undergone a horrific bombardment which has claimed many lives and injured many more.

Some might ask: what does this have to do with gay and lesbian rights? Well, do you think that bombs discriminate between gays and straights? Bombs kill indiscriminately.

Gaza has been blockaded for many years. Israel controls the movement of all supplies: food, medicines, fuel, building materials, clothes… everything. There are no separate convoys, with pink triangle or rainbow flag markings, delivering the necessities of life only to those who are gay or lesbian or transexual in Gaza.

Equally significant is the effect of the blockade on the queer movement in Palestine, including in the Gaza strip. Yes, there is a queer movement in Palestine. Their organisations include Aswat, Al Qaws and Palestinian Queers for BDS.

The blockade of Gaza, the Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank, the heavily controlled movement of Palestinians between the occupied territories, Jerusalem and inside the expansionist borders of Israel makes the movement of Palestinian queer activists very difficult, often impossible.

It is shameful that the mainstream Israeli gay and lesbian organisations are complicit with the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. They lend their name, their cause, their rights, to the Israeli propaganda machine. Israel tells the world that Israel is a beacon of light, of democracy, a haven for gay men and lesbians. It seeks to make people believe that this is in contrast to backward, baabaric Palestinian and other Arab countries. It wants us to support it, and to oppose Palestinians, because unlike other Arab countries, gays and lesbians in Israel are free. This is what is called the Pinkwashing of Israel.

Many will be surprised to know that homosexuality in Palestine, under the Jordanian mandate, was decriminalised in the 1956. In Israel this did not happen until 1988. You see, when a society, such as Palestine, is invaded, occupied, colonised, and its people are oppressed, this tends to have a very conservatising effect on the social mores of the oppressed population. So when Israeli propaganda uses homosexuality as a tool with which to attack Palestinians, this enables conservative Palestinian forces to target homosexuality with more impunity. When Israeli police blackmail Palestinian homosexual men to force them to become spies and informers, in the eyes of most Palestinians all gay men become suspect. This is a deliberate policy by the Iraeli police forces.

In other words Israel is actively complicit in the oppression of Palestinian gay men, lesbians, transexuals and queers.

But, as I mentioned already, there is a Palestinian gay and lesbian movement. In South Africa, during the great struggle against Apartheid, the active participation of gays and lesbians in the struggle for liberation was a major factor in the fact that the Constitution of South Africa today provides protection from discrimination for gays and lesbians. In the same way, this can be achieved in Palestinian society by the active struggle of Palestinian queers against Israeli Apartheid.

And just like in the struggle against South African Apartheid international gay and lesbian solidarity also played a big role in gaining South African gays and lesbians recognition in their own country, likewise our international solidarity with Palestine will, at the same time, be of immeasureable benefit for Palestinian gay men, lesbians, transexuals and queers.

So I urge you all, today, to express your solidarity with all the besieged people of Gaza. The national liberation of the Palestinian people and their sexual liberation are inseparable.